


The Kandar Castle Cycle

by Missy



Category: Army of Darkness (1992), Evil Dead (Movies), Evil Dead - All Media Types
Genre: Ableist Language, Baseball, Beginnings, Blind Date, Brother-Sister Relationships, Caretaking, Childbirth, Christmas Tree, Cooking, Curtain Fic, Demonslaying, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Family, Grief/Mourning, Hair, Hair Kink, Ice Skating, Illnesses, Internal Monologue, Kid Fic, Male Friendship, Missing Scene, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Reading, Reading Aloud, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Sewing, Skating, Sleep Deprivation, Slice of Life, Storytelling, Tree Houses, Vanity, Weddings, frienemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-01-25 14:15:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 14,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1651580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of consecutive stories about Ash and Sheila's courtship (and a story or two about Ash and Linda), written for cotton candy bingo. </p><p>In the first chapter, Sheila tells a tale to her ailing baby brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mother Tongues

**Author's Note:**

> A series of fics written for Cotton Candy Bingo. See each chapter for titles descriptions.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheila nurses her sick baby brother and ends up telling him a story.

“Bastion!” Sheila tutted, finding a handkerchief in her front pocket and swiping it against his red nose. “Ye must lie still.”

The lordling gave a whine as Sheila tried to wipe his red face. “Leamme ‘lone, Sheila,” he demanded. Sheila had to bite back a grin at his supercilious tone. “I wanna have some mead.”

“Mead shall spoil thy stomach,” she said. “I shalt not have thee hung over the chamberpot when ye need every ounce of thy strength.”

He pouted at her as she picked up a pot of salve, screwed it open, and then gently smeared it under his nose. He squirmed and whined, flailing his small limbs. Sheila counted herself fortunate to be older, and slightly stronger, than the future lord of the manor as she released her brother and wiped her fingers upon her apron. 

“Why’d you do that?” he whined.

“Tis one of mother’s receipts,” she said. “Twil clean the passages of thy nose and soothe the chapped skin beneath it.”

Bastion took a protracted sniff through his clogged up nostrils. Apparently he could pick out some faint, far scent, for his features wrinkled. “It smells like pig fat.”

“And mint,” she said. “Give it time, ‘twil heal thee in hours.”

“I do not wish to be healed in hours,” he replied. “I wish to be well now. Henry is leading a hunt and I shall not be with him.”

“There shall be other hunts,” she replied. “He shall understand.”

Bastion pouted, burrowing under his thick quilt. “Sheila? Can ye tell me a tale?”

A bittersweet feeling welled within Sheila’s breast as she came to sit upon his bed. She’d often done this, acting in her mother’s stead throughout her brother’s youth, giving him succor and support, trying to build him into a successful man who could care for the castle when Sheila was married off to some minor baron. That day approached with threatening speed, and it made Sheila nearly glad for the wickedness of the creatures that plagued them. As long as they loomed, she would not be of suitable value to any other fiefdom – and so she nearly wished they would loom forever more. Pushing aside such unpleasant thoughts she stroked her brother’s sweaty forehead. “Once, there was a king’s daughter. She was the fairest woman in all the land, and men came for miles to see her, but hers was an existence without friendship; she lived much alone once the swains were gone, with not even a servant to tend to her. She hated living under the greedy eyes of her suitors, and so, driven by loneliness, she would pray to God that he would make her a tree. Then, on a night where the moon was at its highest, the wish was granted. Her fingertips sprouted leaves, and her hair turned to branches, and her toes rooted there through the cobblestones, seeking water through the ground. For a thousand years men would come still to pay worship to her, but her bark showed no sign of peeling. Oh, how they would cry and beg. Some even tried violence. But there was no sign that she would ever return to her former humanity, and over the centuries they ceased to pay the rotting and now empty old castle any mind.

Then a knight arrived. He sought water for his horse, and food to sustain himself – he was not aware of the legend of the lady who lived in a tree. Instead of treating her like property, he sat and told the woman of a long “Lady,” he said, “I do not demand thy attention. I only wish that ye would listen to my speech.” And so he told her of the world outside the palace. He told her of the things he had seen – and his loneliness. He wished to have someone with which to share his world. And to his astonishment, when the tale was told, her bark peeled back, and a woman emerged, her face coated with tears.

‘When does our adventure begin?’ She asked. And then he took her far away on his white steed, leaving behind her elderberry skin to be brewed to heal children like us who are lonely and sick.” The surprise in her brother’s fevered eyes made Sheila smile. “I suppose the moral is that one cannot build love unless one listens.”

Her brother pouted thoughtfully, rolling over. “That was an all right story,” he said. “Sheila? You won’t ride away and leave me alone, will you?”

She laughed. “Come, how else will ye become well if I doth not care for thee?” she teased.

“Doesn’t mean ye have to,” he pointed out, rolling over. “Night, Sheila.”

“Goodnight,” she said.

The next day, her brother’s fever broke.


	2. Beautiful to Look At

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scotty sets Ash up on a blind date.
> 
> CONTENT NOTE: This chapter contains brief use of character-typical ableist language.

“Jeez Ash, do you have to act like a total spaz?”

Ash quickly snagged the straw wrapper he’d just blew into his best friend’s face from its landing spot in Scott’s well-shellacked hair and plopped the straw itself into his Coke. Then he tugged a lock of dark hair behind his ear and glared at the other man. “I’m not spazzing out,” he replied. Ash’s itchy fingers instead reached out for a packet of sugar, which he began to manipulate with the tips of his fingers. “You promise me she’s a looker?”

“Total looker,” responded Scott. “She’s got stems out there, perfect yabbos and nice hair. A real gorgeous girl – and from what Shelly tells me, she’s nice and sweet, too.”

“Right, so the great Shelly says.” Ash didn’t put much stock into the woman’s opinions and felt completely justified in doing so, especially because Scotty and Shelly had known one another for a grand total of six months. He’d picked her up in a bar on Nickel Shot Thursday, for fuck’s sake.

“Are you making fun of my girl?”

Ash heard the edge of a threat in Scotty’s voice. “C’mon, Scotty, would I do that?”

“No. You’re too much of a goodie two-shoes for that.” Ash glowered. “Hey, don’t get pissed at me! I’m the one trying to get you laid.”

“I’m not trying to get laid,” Ash said. “I’m done with chasing girls. It’s gotten me into nothing but trouble from the day I started dating ‘em. I swear, Scott, the next time I fall in love it’s gonna be for keeps.”

Scott let out an enormous, embarrassingly loud laugh. “Yeah right, mister big romantic. I remember somebody leaving a giant hickey on Susan Farmer last week.”

Ash jabbed a finger at him. “Doesn’t count – we were at a Godzilla movie. You have to make out at a Godzilla movie, it’s the law.”

“Psht!” Scott leaned against the bar and gulped his beer, then wiped his mouth against the back of his hand. “Riight. You totally didn’t want to scope out her ta-tas.”

“Nope. I was too busy scoping out her ass.” 

Scotty hooted. “That’s the Ash man I know!” he slapped Ash hard on the back. “I’m glad one of us is still gonna be on poon patrol. Me an’ Shelly, we’re starting to get a little heavy.” 

“That what they call getting freaky in a dumpster nowadays?” 

“Eh, cram it. Me and Shelly, we’re going places.” He burped and picked up his beer. “Speaking of,” he said, pointing toward the door. “So’s she.”

Ash flung a quick glance over his shoulder and was greeted by the glorious vision of a girl with beautiful light brown hair strolling through the door. She screamed class – Ash automatically sat up a little straighter and popped his collar. “I’m gonna split. Ring me if she ditches you.”

Ash grabbed Scotty by the arm. “

“Has Shelly ever steered me wrong?” Scotty asked. “Trust me, man, she knows a lot of classy girls.” With that, his friend was gone, and he was confronted by the beautiful, brown-haired, sweatshirt wearing girl. 

“Hi,” squeaked Ash.

“Hello,” she echoed playfully. “Are you Ash?”

“Yeah,” he said, offering his hand. “And you’re Linda, right?”

She nodded and beamed at him.

Ash felt a little flutter in his belly that had nothing to do with the amount of cola he’s sipped while waiting for her. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he’d owe Shelly a thank-you by the end of the night. But only time would tell if Linda was more to him than something beautiful to look at.


	3. Gifted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheila tries to create a gift befitting of the Promised One.

The moment he dismissed her to confer with the blacksmith in private, Sheila fled to the privacy of her chamber and barred the door behind her. Her maids were dismissed, and in the secrecy she threw herself onto the bed, uncaring of her fancy gown and her perfectly-coiffed hair.

Her mind whirled with the information it had so recently absorbed. Her brother lay dead in some Scottish field, wearing the emblem of their house, the last hope of her mother’s people; dead, and there was nonce she could do to help him now. Sheila was no hand wringer – she feared no man, not even this man, this infuriating man from the sky with his dark, shining eyes, whom Wiseman John had prophesied to be the kingdom’s salvation. 

She had hated him for taking part in the battle which had slain her brother – but now thanks to the Wiseman’s counsel she knew that he was an innocent man. Her emotions were left worn and faded as an old bolt of chambray. Something deep within her gut twisted and lurched at the memory of his eyes tripping over her body, uncaring of the public nature of their connection. What would Sheila do about him?

An awkward question, it haunted her as she sealed the door of her chamber and spun toward her personal chest of drawers. Her sweat-slicked fingers skittered over the ivory bone pulls, yanking them open, letting her dig through layers of fine silks bought from a recent and very intrepid peddler to reach plain lengths of homespun – sturdy stuff that would outlast any battle set before him. She found her sewing box with marginal effort, and sat upon her bed to thread up a needle. Once the pants were stitched, she searched for stronger material to make his shirt. Whatever she chose to make him, it must be blue; the color of a royal cape, the bold, strong, impressive shade of his own shirt.

Her cheeks flamed bright in the firelight. Fingers scrambled for a task to busy themselves with. Where had she placed her bottle of elderberry dye? It was procured over the summer, and had been used on her solstice cape. Her fingers found her bone needle again and threaded it, then parceled a length of brown woven for the cape.

The longer she worked, the merrier she felt. Some took comfort in their children and their songs; she needed her sewing to keep her mind afresh. She smiled as the material stitched together.

A knock upon her chamber door ceased her work before she could complete the cape. “Yes?”

“Mistress?” It was thirteen year old Alais, one of Sheila’s tiring girls. “He hath asked for thee,” she said, and Sheila could only smile at the servant girl’s giggles.

“All right,” she sighed, setting apart the sewing. “Tell him I shall meet him in the forecourt in a quarter candle hence.” 

The girl disappeared, and Sheila realized that he’d never be able to understand her speech. They spoke so differently in the future that she wondered how he’d understood her words of anger. She got to work again, changing out of her best dress and into a work outfit, determined to change them to words of fondness in the end. 

She gathered the cape and needle under her arm and made for the forecourt, hoping that he spoke the language of caring, underneath his cruel bluster.


	4. The Selfish Giant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's used to loving himself the most.

Nobody loved himself more than Ash Williams. From the top of his head to the tips of his toes he was a self-guided beacon, he couldn’t help but see perfection when he looked in the mirror. 

He loved the dark unmanageable thicket of his hair, and the deep slash of an eyebrow that darted up and down in concert with his emotions. He loved the deep dark wide pools of his eyes, the heavy fringe of them – once considered ‘too girly’ in childhood, now a handsome and shiny window to his tortured soul that drew women as honey on a slab of sugar. He loved his hard, unforgiving line of a mouth, sharp and long, pressed pale pink, bloodless in fright and throbbing passionfruit dark when properly kissed. 

He loved his swanning, long, thick neck, and his compact but muscular shoulders. He loved the thickness of his chest, built strong, sprinkled with hair, and surprisingly barrel-like width of, a masculine sign of strength in a body that was otherwise long and slim.

He loved his strong stomach and the strength of his bones; he loved the width of his hands and the strength of his hands, which could destroy and give life in equal measures. He loved the thickness of his thighs and the tapered width of his calves, and even his big, flat feet. It was a man’s body with a man’s opinions and a man’s gutsy sense of daring.

What he couldn’t force himself to love were his scars; innumerable, dark, white, lining up his whole face. Other men would see them as a mar to their true beauty, but Ash considered them mile markers on his long journey toward victory over the Deadite horde.

Vanity was his main sin – yes, even above murder in his mind, for the deaths he had caused were completely involuntary and the result of Deadite possession, no jury in the world would convict him, thank you very much. He thought he owed it to himself to be as self-aggrandizing as humanly possible. Spiritually and psychologically, he was wounded; the pale gray marrow of his guts had been twisted and turned about, like a child’s demented art project. He was embittered and tough and resistant to the bullshit of the Deadites who surrounded him, and all of that made him the sort of feisty do-gooding badass who stood before them unbowed and brave.

But here was the real truth of it. This woman – this beautiful, impossible, tough-minded, ridiculous woman – she just might love him more than he loves himself. 

That was a frightening thought. And one that made Ash smile to himself. There was never a crime in wanting to be loved, and she definitely wanted him. Who cared if she was two hundred years older than him; who cared if she could be his great grandmother? The body he loved wanted her, and that was a good enough excuse to give himself away in happiness. And his body – his strong, brave, endlessly tough body - always got whatever made it happy.


	5. For Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're just roommates...for now.

She doesn’t have anywhere to go, so she shows up at his door the second she wiggles free of customs and waits, politely, for him to let her inside.

Sheila only wants to learn how to pay for room and board in this time, but Ash insists upon giving her his bed. He vacates the space and glowers at walls while she tentatively creeps about the apartment learning about the new place she’d thrown herself into.

Much like Alice Liddell, she had no idea which end was up fifty percent of the time.

But soon she learned how to run a washer. How to run a vacuum cleaner. How to walk down a modern street while fitting in and not running screaming for the safety of the familiar. It was all fairly brave, though Ash didn’t have the presence of mind fifty percent of the time to tell her so. Sheila just tucked her chin to her chest and kept on living, carrying the weight of her tender folly within her breast.

Ash hung back, a chill presence in her life. He wasn’t sure what to do about her, that much was clear. Should he date or should he try to talk about her choice?

Instead he lived around her, trying to help her when he could, trying to avoid her when he must. Sheila knew she had no real right to complain when she had chosen to follow him here, had swallowed her own drops, said her own words, and had woken up in a time not her own.

Because she was lonely. Because having experienced what she’d experienced, she couldn’t go back to lingering in gardens and nibbling sweetmeats. She couldn’t close her eyes and whisk away all she’d seen and be a sweet little girl anymore.

Surely if she told him as much he’d understand. But had Ash ever listened to anyone.

Would he?

*** 

His thawing would come later – later when they both had time to breathe. But she noticed the small things creeping into the picture then, and felt a new security. It was mostly the milk. He actually replaced it when he used the last of it. He even stopped drinking from the carton in her presence. That eventually extended to doing the ordering out, cooking and shopping until she seemed to learn the lay of the kitchen. 

When he saw her struggle with doling out the proper amount of money for a bus fare, he took the time to teach her how to count up a fare. It occurred to him that she knew nothing about modern money, and so he endeavored to teach her how to do it, using M&Ms as cents. 

He taught her how to turn on the television set and what a program was, the difference between news and a fiction-filled program. He taught her about cars and, finally, how to drive.

Much of the rest of their companionship simply fell into place, an easy, happy and very quiet rhythm of living.

But there remained an awkwardness yet to be dispelled.


	6. Chill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She catches on quickly...well, to some things.

It occurs to him suddenly that she really doesn’t have any idea how modern contraptions work. He’d be ashamed that it took him over four months to understand that she was struggling with anything, but then again Ash isn’t known to be the most sensitive man in history.

She doesn’t have any idea how to run a washing machine until he shows her how much soap to pour into the spout and the proper amount of time to run wool, cotton and satin through the rinse – but she’s burned her failures. She doesn’t know how to turn on the stove and how to cook a meal for the proper length of time – but she’s eats the disasters herself and serves him her finest offerings.

He does know what fair is, and this ain’t it.

So he teaches her – how to cook and clean with those modern contraptions, and she blushes, then tosses her head high and pretends she knew everything. She masters it all through sheer will and assimilates because she’s made of iron.

But still, he sees her cracks, sometime. Notices when she stumbles over pressing a crosswalk button and automatically steps in when she’s too slow to count out money at a toll stop. Feels the need to explain that she’s been overseas for a very long time and America has become a strange world to her. Sheila glares bloody murder at him but she doesn’t fight his help, and doesn’t acknowledge her quiet improvement. 

There remains a sticking point in that progress tho – and it’s called modern dress. Sheila’s never been one to be terribly immodest – there’s a difference between gutsiness and boldness and she falls right into the divide between her desire to be chic and her desire to be attractive to him.

What does this result in? She forgets to wear a coat.

She dons capes with the ease of a fashionista, but they provide no real barrier against the bitter cold of Michigan’s winter. It drives him to offer her better protection, and it drives her to ignore him and draw her woolen covering closer, leaving Ash to grumble about how she’s going to catch her death.

She never does, but he manages to figure out a way around her endless reluctance. During a long walk home from the S-Mart he sees her shiver under her blue satin cape and unzips his double-quilted Michigan Wildcats baseball jacket. He hands it over to Sheila, who gives him a glance over her shoulder and just keeps moving.

Ash has to pull her to a stop by grasping her forearm. He strips the jacket off and holds it out. “Here,” he says, draping it around her shoulders like a victory shroud, then tying the sleeves around her waist like a soccer mom’s mantle. “You looked cold,” he says.

“I wert not cold,” she declares stiffly. Ash rolled his eyes.

“Whatever.” Now he’s the one covered in goosebumps. With a grunt, Ash ahead to the warmth of the apartment. 

But when he looks back he can see Sheila burrowing into the warm softness of his jacket, taking a second to inhale whatever scent he’d left behind before striding forward.

“Ye didn’t see that,” she says, passing him.

“Of course not,” Ash replies, and plans on picking her up a varsity jacket of her own when go on sale in the spring – though this one won’t smell of his skin, to her probable disappointment.


	7. Acknowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's pulling out all of the stops here.

The going was slow. Well. Perhaps slow wasn’t the word for it. Slothlike might be much more descriptive, though it didn’t measure the depth of the conflict between them. 

She had grown used to the small gulf between them – her pride deepened it, even though her heart yearned to breech it. Sheila should have anticipated his anger, but she was too caught up in the promise of her sudden choice, the decision the wiseman had helped her come to. It seemed that turning up unexpectedly in the future with no particular aim other than to tell him how much she missed him wasn’t an entirely wise choice when the king of one’s heart could barely afford his one-room apartment and, for all of his repeated instances of daring doo was considered an utter.

It wasn’t that Ash was cruel to her – it was that he had no idea how to behave within her presence. And soon Sheila learned precisely why he had been so reluctant to act the lord of the manner in her presence. From her station within the pet department, she could witness how his boss treated him, how the common rabble disrespected him. She understood quickly enough that the commoners in his time didn’t treat him with the respect due a man of his stature – in fact, completely ignored all he did to keep the town safe. It made Sheila’s blood boil. He had saved reality itself, present and future, and they treated him like an oaf to be ignored, used and cast away.

She realized quite abruptly that for all of the, her beloved was seen as a cranky malcontent whose outlandish lies had somehow – and quite luckily –proven to be right.

She might not be able to change the world’s opinion of his prowess, but she could make him happy by using the skills she had at hand. Ash was a simple creature – he enjoyed peace. Peace she could give him, if just by giving him her presence and her silence.

She could also cook for him. 

Sheila didn’t let her culinary pursuits interfere with what she wanted to do, but she also adored showing off for the man. And so there were dishes of roast goose and platters of fresh sautéed carrots; there were fresh raspberry cordials and there were apple fools. She learned how to use modern fryers and nearly scorched herself making donuts but turned out a perfectly lovely sponge cake.

She didn’t think he made much notice of her efforts at all, simply shoveling in the food and heading off to bed. 

But the tide turned suddenly at the tail end of a long, exhausting day where she’d had to behead a Deadite of her own. She came home to a kitchen daubed with sticky splats of peanut butter and a table crusted with grape jelly – and a sandwich on a platter, a glass of milk, and a fruit salad.

Ash placed the sandwich on his battered kitchen table and stepped back. “Here. I made it for you,” he said, nudging the sandwich toward her with his index finger. “I don’t think it’s possessed.” He raised an eyebrow. “Basically.”

She wanted to cry her gratefulness but instead she sat down to the feast.


	8. Gliding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the easiest date he can think up at the time.

Courting a woman you’ve already slept with is an odd proposition. Ash – not much of a romantic even in the best of circumstances – is stuck trying to show Sheila the best of this world, the best of Detroit, without being too repetitious or intimidating her.

So there he was, trying to figure out how to entertain a time traversing woman. And as Ash searched every caulkboard in Dearborn trying to think of the new, it was Sheila who popped her head up and suggested something.

“Shall we go skating, milord?”

Ash agreed readily. It was a cheap enough activity, and also one each of them had a form of experience in. So when the air was crisp and frigid, and when he had the money to rent skates, he picked Sheila up and they headed down to the Dearborn Skating Rink. Sheila tied his laces (she said HE was too loose with them) and then they shoved off onto the placid glassy icy before them.

Ash fell to his knees instantly, his blade catching into the icy surface, but Sheila propelled herself ahead unstintingly, chuckling. She missed his presence and spun round to check on him. “Are ye hurt?”

It was a ludicrous question after all he’d survived. “Fine,” he growled, climbing to his knees. “Gimmie a hand.”

She extended hers, pure princess, a little smile coloring up her pretty pink features. “Thou art…rusty?”

Ash yanked his hand out of her grip. “I ain’t rusty! I’ve been skating more years than you have brains!”

She tilted her head and glared right back at him. “Well, thou art rather…wobbly on thy feet,” she said carefully.

Ash thumped upon his bladed feet and managed a smooth glide. She shrugged and took his mittened hand, calmly steering the course for both of them as he tried to figure out how to lean his weight. The rhythm arrived, his confidence growing.

He found himself smiling a smile that could never compete with Sheila’s for radiance. She was more alive here than he’d seen her in ages, and it was absolutely inspiring. Ash kept an eye on her as they circled the ice like a tandem of sharks, laughing at the world daring the world.

When she finally tripped, Ash managed to catch her mid-fall, a gesture deliberately suave and romantic that made her laugh breathlessly.

“Hey, don’t bite the arm that catches you.”

“I would not dream of it,” she said.

He righted her and tried to nudge her toward the cider kiosk. He bought them two, and they huddled under the ice-covered branches and warmed themselves before setting off again.

“Are you having fun?” he asked. After awhile it had indeed started being fun again for Ash, but he had no idea if her ideas had been changed by skating with him – it was possible that her childhood memories of ponds and sledge pulls had been altered by his presence.

“It’s like flying,” she said, her grin wide. 

Ash swallowed hard, feeling her warm him twice as much as the cider. He knew that the knot in his gut meant he was in love with her, and it only made him want to run.


	9. Tangled Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's got great hair, what can he say?

It was like living with Rapunzel. 

A very strong-willed Rapunzel who has deadly aim, Ash mentally amended. But as tough and strong willed - and undeniably feminine – as Sheila was, there was no way to get around it – the girl had movie princess hair.

It fascinated him, to be honest. All of the girls he’d seen before her had worn their hair shorn to the shoulders, in the modern way. Ash had no beef with that – on Linda the look had been positively ravishing – but he quietly admitted to himself that Sheila’s case was different – and he hadn’t had as much fun playing with Linda’s hair.

And now to sound like a creep, but Sheila’s hair was infinitely softer and infinitely easier to get his fingers through. She complained of his tendency to muss it up, to make her life harder and her grooming habits that much more annoying to keep up with, but Ash couldn’t help tugging on a lock and watching it bounce back into place now and again, like a spring set wild from its socket. 

It was a lifelong habit, part of the girl teasing he’d started years ago and finally culminated in this union. He and Sheila were the epitome of schoolyard teasing, the slap-slap-kiss that kids often put their playmate through. They had transplanted that immaturity to the suburbs, to their rational marriage and their permanent union, and to his surprise it was working pretty well. She called him an oaf, he talked about her witchy ways, and in the middle they met with absolute equinity.

He remembered her hair back in England, the way it smelled of heather when he held her close, and the thick metal thongs she’d used to hold them back – utterly foreign to his clumsy fingertips. Then there was the way it curled against her neck, slick with sweat, when they made love, and the taste of it on his tongue when they’d fallen asleep in a tangle together. Darkly, there had been the way it had crackled like lightning around her face when she’d been a Deadite. And the peculiar dryness of it when she’d been dead by his own fingers.

And yet for all of the passion Ash felt for Sheila’s beauty her hair was the final detail he enjoyed, the crowning glory. He’d rather marvel at her eyes, her smile, the curve of her hip or the roundness of her breast. He’d rather be hidden in the softness between her thighs than anywhere else in the universe.

But still, her hair. Her wonderful, curly, soft hair, the wonder that marks her distinctly as an individual, as wholly Sheila.

For all of the feelings he has for her body, for the other, finer, softer hair he’d love to play with, if given the chance, he had to admit she was beautiful to touch, beautiful to hold, and at her most beautiful with her crowning glory sprawled out and framing her gorgeous face.

She’d leave him with a fetish yet.


	10. Talent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheila finds a certains something Ash's been hiding, but he's not pleased when she tries to bring it all to light.

She found it buried under stacks of old Playboys in the back closet of his bedroom, decorated with orange rinds and a fossilized daub of mozzarella cheese. Sheila had felt compelled to take care of the place and doubly-bound to the notion of making a home for them at long last – so to find this crinkled up and aging in the back of a half-empty closet was quite a shock.

Sheila went to the effort of making sure it was pressed flat, then cleaned and framed professionally. She even hid it in a place Ash would never look while waiting for his birthday to roll around. After two weeks undisturbed in the vegetable bin, Sheila brushed it off, then prepared to deliver them to Ash with his cake and ice cream after he got off of work.

The reveal did not go as planned, to say the very least, for when he eagerly unwrapped the paper the gift hidden within its folds made his features turn to stone, and he shoved himself away from the table and sought mental sanctuary far from the warmth of the hearth she had so carefully prepared.

She finally thought to approach him after her confusion burned its way into a pique of anger. To her surprise, he sat staring at his metal hand, his features a welter of dark emotions.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

“And why not?” she rested her hands upon her hips. “Thou art a man of great talent. Ye should not be squandering it so recklessly…”

“Me?” his voice crackled with pain. “Sweetie, that ain’t my work. You don’t get it,” he scrubbed a hand over his features. “Those things…Cheryl drew them. My sister.” He leaned back against the wall, resting his head. “My DEAD sister.”

Sheila dug her teeth into her bottom lip. The pain in his eyes redoubled in her heart. “I thought ‘twas some secret thing.”

“Yeah, the secret is I’m an a-class screw up.” He watched her sheepish features, saw her fiddle with the fading wallpaper stuck to the baseboard of the wall behind her. “I don’t talk about her a lot.”

“Nay,” Sheila said. “I presumed her to be an unbreachable topic of discussion.”

“Didn’t mean to make her into that,” Ash said. “But it’s hard.” He didn’t need to explain how difficult it must feel – Sheila knew a similar pain, deep within her breast, over the death of her own brother. “She was beautiful. And talented. That picture you had framed – it was a sketch she made of our mom.” Ash added, “she was beautiful too. And just as damnably dead as my sister.”

Sheila worried her lip between her top and bottom teeth, then finally spoke up. “Mayhaps ye might come to memorialize them. In time, they shall bring happy memories to thy heart.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he sighed. “Come on, you owe me some cake.”

“Do I?” she arched an eyebrow. “Thou ought to learn the meaning of the word ‘please’, Ashley.” 

He just pinched her behind as he passed by. “With sugar on top,” he growled.

Later she discovered the picture sitting framed beside their bed.

It would stay there for fifty years.


	11. Assurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheila can't sleep.

How can he sleep? 

And he can sleep, she realized with disgust. He almost luxuriated in the amount of rest he could consume in a night, gobbling it down greedily like a trencherman at a feast. Unaware that beside him lay his lady, perturbed by nightmares and unable to stir him from his endless rest.

Sheila growled, rolling toward the wall. Perhaps these overstuffed pillows would block out his infernal snoring. She could feel everything; the beat of her heart and the tick of the clock joining up in an unholy unison.

Sheila opened her eyes and they fixed upon the clock. It was four in the morning; the darkest hour, and even silent on the city street outside their bedroom window.

She sighed and twisted herself back over, weighing her options. She could knit, but the clacking would waken him. She might read, but the light would hurt her eyes at this early hour. So she turned her eyes toward the black box at the foot of the bed and gave it a cautious little shove. 

The box flipped on and the screen was filled with the sight of a blonde in a red swimsuit climbing out of a pool.

Sheila automatically cringed. Even though Ash had taught her to use the talking box, it still made her feel out of her depth in its presence. It was a storyteller unlike any she’d encountered, so versatile and filled with so many conflicting thoughts. The box went on to sell her chips and shaving cream as se stretched out, toing the volume upward to best compete with Ash’s snoring.

Sheila remembered a time when she’d been afraid of nearly everything in this modern world – if not afraid, then at least a hair reluctant. Confronted suddenly with so many large, loud mechanical things, so many fashions cut low at the chest and high at the knee, presented with so many foods from lands she could not have accessed in her time, she had been forced daily to fight her initial fear until it became commonplace to her. She trusted vacuums and taxi cabs, but the talking box was still a puzzlement due to its malleability.

In that way, it was much like Ash.

Sheila cast her eye again upon her husband. Ash occupied the bed with great ease, sprawling across the covers, owning the space with ease. She swears this lordliness is an inborn trait, for she’s never met a man who could work his way into a world foreign to him with such ease.

She almost felt as if he wasn’t real. Her itchy fingers reach out to brush his chest…

…And she met his face to note that his eyes were wide open and watching her.

“Oh,” she cringed, withdrawing slightly from him. “I didn’t mean to wake thee.”

Ash nuzzled her cheek. “Shh. C’mere.” The tips of his fingers wriggled in the air. “Put your head on my chest.”

She reluctantly rested against him, feeling warm, hairy, solid flesh against her cheek. The familiar heartbeat settled against her eardrum, pounding ancient promises into her mind.

“Better?”

“Mmm.” She did feel better.

“Good,” Ash said. “Rather be a teddy bear than a science experiment.”

She rolled her eyes but her grip didn’t lose one ounce of its strength.


	12. Gimmie a Hint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, there is a first time for everything - or Ash is seductive and Sheila is shy.

“Gimmie a hint, baby.”

Sheila arched her back, moaning low beneath her breath. Why did she feel so sensitive, so heavy? He was quite literally doing nothing to her, but she couldn’t seem to get close enough to his mouth. She bucked in futile protest and his heavy hand splayed upon her pelvis, anchoring her to his bed, his demands.

“Uh uh. Tell, don’t show.” 

Sheila’s pulse throbbed. All of his requests were impossibly wicked, an amazing change in demeanor since the first time they’d encountered one another in such an intimate way. Nothing about their time together in her world had prepared her for the blatant intimacies he introduced her to with such surety now that they sat upon his home turf, in a bed and time that both belonged to him. 

Sheila rolled under his touch, completely bereft of her dignity. She felt full and alive in that spot between her legs, throbbing with painful energy that she naïvely could not disperse on her own.

She kept her eyes tightly closed as her hand cupped itself around his wrist, drawing his palm over her bared flesh. Her skin sang the classic song of a woman filled with lust – it recognized the difference between his touch and her own, felt the sharp catch of his calluses and the weight and warmth of the difference between them.

She moved his hand – his strong, blood-warm hand – against her flesh while he watched in his silent, authoritative way. Sheila lost all of her helplessness when she realized the sight of her body pleased him – she pulled upon his wrist until the hand inched down over the slippery skin of her abdomen. 

Sheila tugged and he obeyed ; the hand moved in a broad stroke down her belly and nestled between her legs, but it didn’t make another move, trying to let her dictate the motion. 

She closed her fingers around her pubis, and then arched into his palm. “Touch me. Touch me where you were before.”

Ash sucked upon his lower lip. “What’s in it for me?” The words combined with a sudden wiggle of those fingers that goaded a response from Sheila – she let out a squawk and gave him a sharp, quick blow across the nose with a pillow.

He yelped and grabbed for skin. “That’s a low blow,” he declared. 

“Nay, this is,” she said, sitting up and snaking her fingers through the low, downy hair between his legs. Her hand found his cock, took it up, felt the hard, sharp pulse of his flesh and the shaky inhalation of his breath. Her smile was wicked, sylphlike as she stroked her hand down the column of his desire. She felt a measure of sweet revenge sweeten the moment.

He brushed his lips against her forehead and rested there, her fingers finding his flesh, his and holding hers. “Ain’t gonna win this one,” he declared.

“Ye have not mastered me yet,” she said.

“There’s a first time for everything,” he said.

Later that night she’d breathlessly agree with that sentiment.


	13. Once Upon a Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn't read any more. Can you imagine that?

He doesn’t read.

This is a problem. Sheila never really did see the Evil Book – therefore her love of old stories and old volumes remains intact. The scent of old books and the feeling of pages brushing by her index fingers are crucial and welcome sensations that trigger the sweetest of old memories for her.

But Sheila just can’t seem to draw those same sweet memories out of Ash. He eyes her every book with suspicion – or he just plain avoids the room when she lies down to read them.

Solitude isn’t an option when she’s this mountainously pregnant. He hovers around her like a possessive guard dog with a grudge against humankind, witnessing her consumption of literature with a glower. Sometimes she caught him watching her, peeping over her shoulder in grand curiosity, and Sheila finds herself wondering if he wants to press the escape button, join her in a blunted, Technicolor world of imagination. But he’d rather watch his television programs, shout at the box and the loud, rude foods who existed within its climes. 

“Ye might become literati thyself some day,” Sheila suggests.

He grumbles and waits for her to finish the next chapter.

*** 

She’s glad her father taught her to read so many years ago, when she was very young and very lonely, walled up in the homecastle, waiting to be sent off to foster for an eventual marriage prospect. Many women of her time were not allowed such luxuries; they were forced to take up the needle and the harp, the cradle and the wellbucket. Instead he set her to his books, set her lively mind to keeping the castle’s records in preparation for her brother’s ascent to manhood. Sheila still finds the scent of ink intoxicating, the scratch of a pen against an empty book a comfort. 

She keeps track of their budget, using the baby as a writing desk, in a similar way. Now home and on bed rest, she remembers how her mother would hold her tightly and recite old tales and poems, stories of brave men and fearless women, stories of untamed dragons and ancient castles. They came from her mother’s memory, but Sheila blends these old, deeply ingrained tales with new ones picked up from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. Aloud, she recites to the child in her womb, feeling it turn and swim against her insides, wishing that it was time for its birth – wishing she could have it to hold and kiss.

Ash is not one for tales. He’s lived a legend – there’s no need to play at being one. But Sheila’s already started to weave a folkstory for their child, a rhyme that will sink into its blood and the pounding of its heart, always giving it a reason

** 

He ends up in bed with a broken shoulder four weeks before she’s due to deliver. The narcotic haze wears off, and he’s too restless to watch the jabbering fools bandy about on his box. 

Sheila has her opening. “Lie still,” she says, “and I shall read for thee.”  
He glowers as his muscles relax, his head coming to rest upon her shoulder. She said, “once, there was a beautiful maiden with raven hair, locked away in a fearsome tower…”


	14. Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ordinary day in the ordinary life of a cursed demonslayer.

It begins the way it always begins every morning from the time Ash was incredibly young; with the sound of an alarm shrieking in his ear, demanding another day’s work out of his exhausted flesh.

The sensation of a warm body sleepily shifting beside him isn’t entirely new, but it takes effort to remember the woman beside him isn’t Linda, and that they’re not headed off together to another afternoon at Michigan University. There are sleepy, sour kisses before they share the bathroom and scrounge up breakfast.

Sheila insists on thick pastes of oats, apples, raisins and nuts, shoveled down with bacon (Ash’s idea) while they try to plot the day. The tv blurts news over the sound of coffee plopping into pots and water boiling; Ash plots his fantasy football night while she cleans up. 

He drops her off at the Hobby Hole, then swings back to the S-Mart He’s two minutes late and the old man’s already on his ass; after re-arranging the sale items in his section he’s sent around to mark a stack of blenders down, then forced to mop up baby puke in the food court. It wasn’t even noon yet.

Ash has a love/hate relationship with his job. He loves the people and the atmosphere of the store, and hates doing garbage work. It’s better to be on register for hours of mind-numbing plotting and scheming than emptying the garbage in the men’s room, but he knows from experience it’s like that with all jobs.   
When trouble happens –as trouble is wont to do – it comes in the form of an old lady trying to buy a microwave with an expired Sears store card. He’s not very patient with her doddering inability to understand that his store and Sears don’t share some kind of secret, mysterious beneficial relationship and he can’t honor her discount – and he’s much less understanding when she starts levitating. 

This time he comes up with a perfect one liner: “You must be the pretty sister.” It’s the same garbage from the same hellbound she-beast; feast on his pathetic soul, check; super-strength, check; careless use of bystanders as a club to try to beat him to death with, check (he’s going to own Anthony one if the kid doesn’t end up with a concussion). He finishes her off by jamming her head into one of the Oster Blenders on the fifty percent off table, and after her pulverized skull’s ejaculated a stream of gooey puss into the blades he casually goes to check on Anthony.

The kids’ eyes goggle about in his skull. “Are you going to kiss me, Miss Madonna?” he asks, and Ash has management call an ambulance. They wait together right there on the floor of the store, and he idly picks up some of the detritus he’s scattered about them.

The police have grown used to taking statements from Ash – and aren’t really predisposed to disbelieve the hysterical witnesses or the puddle of black and red goo on the floor. Anthony goes off to the hospital, and Ash gets to take an early lunch with Sheila.

As always, she coos over his bruises and cuts, and he examines her for evidence of any violent incidents. It’s hard for him to trust her independence, but when they target her she’s surefooted and inventive (Sealant is apparently a perfect flamethrower). She leaves him with a kiss and all of the affection she can give and he holds onto it like a coin of gold.

The rest of the day’s predictable; he mops up his section, makes sales, adjusts the mess he’s made for the night crew. He gets off at six and heads to pick Sheila up before tucking up for dinner and baseball.

The game confuses her, and he knows she’d rather be watching one of her nighttime soap operas, but he fills her in on the hows and whats and whys of the game. There’s cold beer to drink, and the warmth of her arms to lean into – and her ears to accidentally abuse whenever the Tigers hit a home run.

They end up in bed by midnight, woven together. Sometimes they make love; sometimes they’re too sore and frightened to do anything but cling like vines to a pole. But always as the night turns blue-black and the cars grow silent outside the window, they still have the only thing that really matters to either of them – one another.


	15. A girl for all seasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes. This is how.

Their first snowball fight takes place in the S-Mart’s parking lot. He’d had a frightening day, she had witnessed his near death – and well, what better way to blow off steam then lobbing chunks of frozen ice at each other?

He managed to knock her back into an embankment and finish her off with a handful of powder swept from the top of the classic, then stood back to brag with his hands tucked against his waist. In mid-speech she clobbered him in the puss with an iceball and he was left to spit and struggle as she squirmed her way into the car.

She left him to stand there and sputter until her hands were fully dried against the warmth of the heat – then deigned to let him inside.

*** 

She seemed to come alive in spring. Not that she wasn’t lively during the winter with her endless need to prepare, procure, bake, visit and carol. But spring was Sheila’s forte; in it, she could grow a garden and hoe a yard; she could sew a sundress and wear it into the fresh orange sunlight. All she knew about the natural world could be applied to the modern one, and she reveled in the little time it took to adjust to the modern way of doing things; fresh peaches from the farmer’s market could still be spiced and boiled and put away for the long winter, flowers could still be sold for a dollar a bundle, and fields could still be used as a convenient place to dally with one’s lover.

Ash reaped the benefit of this, and seemed to find it easier to woo her when they were hidden away in a field behind the high school necking than trying to deal with the problems of adulthood. The drone of cicadas and the croak of frogs seemed much more hospitable than the sound of their arguing, so they wallowed in their physical pleasure and thought of nothing more than that.

They wished that spring would last forever.

*** 

Summer brought with it oppressive heat, frigid air conditioning, and a need to escape to the coolest part of the apartment on an hourly basis. They couldn’t maintain contact during the oppressive heatwaves, so they did the next best thing and tried to perform acts of kindness for one another. She’d do the dishes in the morning and he’d pack her a lunch at night; they’d take cool baths together and lie under the fan, letting the soft air wick away layers of sweat and the vague, alarming scent of Deadite blood. 

They would get in the car and drive for miles, until they ran into a Deadite or grew alarmingly low on gas. On the way back – coated in sweat and goo, the sound of Ash bought alarming quantities of take-out food, which Sheila would reheat in the microwave. Then they’d eat, their knees brushing softly under the table.

It was a time of fireworks, literal and figurative; of hanging out around the block and learning to talk about their troubles. It was a time of growing up against fate and hope, and learning about how to be a unified couple – even when sex wasn’t on the table.

*** 

Autumn was easier to deal with. There were pies to bake and pumpkins to carve; there were crisp leaves to rake up and pile away for the garbage man to take. And for Sheila there was he knitting of sweaters. Ash just worried about the heating bills and complained that the holiday season was a pain in the ass.

But they could enjoy the denouement of baseball season in comfort, walk in the leaves and hold hands –if he was in an obliging mood. They could taste pumpkin pie and make love without sweating to death.

Every season was different in Michigan, each meant a different degree of tenderness – and each, much to their mutual pleasure, bound them closer together.


	16. Merry Christmas, Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even demonslayers decorate their Christmas trees.

“How long is it going to take thee to undo that?” 

Ash threw her a cocky, devil-may-care smile. “Gimmie ten minutes and you’ll be asking that about your dress.” He threaded his fingers through the endless tangle of bright light wires, his lighthearted behavior turning to a dark frown as he failed to untangle the mass of decorations. 

Sheila crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. “Must thou be uncouth on Yuletide eve?” she wondered. “Tis close to blasphemy to treat me as an object of lust on the eve of the Christ Child’s birth!”

Ash smirked. “Baby, if there weren’t no lust there wouldn’t be any little Christians running around worshipping.” His heavy fingers tugged at the dark green wire, and Sheila watched impatiently as it slowly started to transform the misshapen ball into a long strand of bejeweled finery. She fussed with the smaller trim while he completed his task; plastic candles that lit up through battery power, bright gleaming glass balls that came from his mother’s place; delicate china angels that had drooped their blessings from the branches of his great grandmother’s tree; a small train set that was Victorian in age and stentorian in size. She lined up the parts to better make a whole; then, with careful consideration, she placed each item upon a bough of their carefully-selected from the back lot of the S-Mart Douglas fir tree. 

Her sure fingers had no problem placing each little delicate object on its proper place; she had the eye of an artist and a brain that remained sharp and true. Ash was halfway through untangling the lights by the time she placed the very last ornament onto the tree.

Then she was forced to turn to him – though she was tall and slim, Sheila could not reach the top of the tree barefooted. She nudged Ash’s shoulder with her toe to get his attention.

Her boyfriend crouched before the lights, staring them down as if they were disobedient soldiers. “Now you stay,” he said, “where I put ya, hear me? No foolishness.” He raised an eyebrow at her poking. “Whaddya want?”

“A man of great stature to perch the angel upon her proper place,” she said. Holding out the plastic object, wrapped up in satine, Ash sighed and climbed to his feet.

“Oughta get you a stepladder next year,” he remarked. He managed to step on his tippy toes while settling the angel, giving Sheila a moment to fiddle with the lights herself.

He squatted down beside her as she finished a row, the jewel-colors popping to life under their mutual ministrations. Their fingers met and pressed, and she blushed sweetly and turned her eyes back toward the strands. The physical intimacy was warming but somehow disquieting; Sheila was used to solitude, and this new plasticine-coated form of worship was enough to leave her out of sorts by itself, but Ash’s presence just added to the fire, burning her alive.

Placing the lights over the ornaments was a rookie mistake they’d later come to regret, but when they stood back to plug in their masterpiece they both felt like accomplished adults. He slung an arm over her shoulders, she leaned back, and bathed in the blinking green light she felt a wave of domestic peace wash over them.


	17. Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She grows a deep fondness for them, these modern words.

The words come to her, thick with cozy layers of fat and dreams. They celebrate the swollen state of her mind, the needy want buried in her heart like a secret fantasy. This new knowledge is a thirst that runs deeper than sex within her soul; it draws her along like a ghost along the banks of the prose – she is enervated and soothed, over and over again.

There’s the romantic cadence of two lovers long dead, the emotion still true and real, glowing up from the pages like a lantern leading her to the underworld. There’s the voice of a woman scorned, longing to hurt her rival, her words ripping bloody holes in the woman’s elegance and grace. Then there’s the sound of the man, admonishing the both of them, trying to assert his dominance to the world that sees his puppet dictatorship as a hollow game.

There’s the woman who yearns to gobble her death up like a candy apple, even though it will mean leaving behind the daughters she loves. There’s the woman wading into the river, baptizing herself in death. There are the men talking about deaths filled with blood and angst, their bodies thrown to starving dogs.

Then there are the flower verses, written dainty on the wings of memories and spun of the pure flaxen thread of a child’s innocence. There are the families who write the histories of their lives together on the backs of their childrens’s dreams, their precocious words and their funny foibles. There are the realists who chronicled their every fart as if it were a worthwhile and important memory. There are the naturalists who report upon the behavior of animals, who try to draw an umbilical line between the human and animal experiences. They spoke of wolves and ravens and owls as if they had a human’s ravenous nature and a child’s curiosity; they acted as if these animals understood the wickedness hidden soul-deep in the human breast.

In all of them she imagines tiny flecks of herself – crystal prisms reflecting back what she’d discovered in herself. Sheila had had fewer things to read when she was younger – and young women were not encouraged to love the classics nor was she given instruction in them when he taught her her letters. Even her father, who had frankly encouraged her scholarly endeavors could only extend his encouragement so much and so far. But now she had the freedom to have and to read any story she wished; anything she wanted could be hers, just with the simple flick of a fingertip. It was liberating and frightening all the same.

Eventually she learns to incorporate poetic rhythms into her normal life, and it becomes less of a special form of art. Still, she finds herself bending lower to the lamp – and finds that he hangs on her shoulder, eyes scraping across the page. It’s simpler to be read to and what he prefers, but her absorption interests him more than anything else. His hands hold and stroke, giving her additional protection against the world.


	18. Lucky Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's been plotting this for six months.

He’s been plotting this for six months. 

Six very long months. It’s the most thought he’s put into anything for a very long time. The most consideration he’s displayed in years. Everything must be perfect – everything WILL be perfect, as far as he’s concerned. He just has to buy the right roses, find the right food, and actually take the time to cut his hair and make himself presentable. But he does it. He drags himself to the barber and he shaves his face smooth. He takes a hot shower and scrubs his skin rosy. He cleans the apartment, gets a new tablecloth and spreads it out. He heats the best French food he can find in Detroit up and places them on their good dishes, then lights armies of candles up before plunking the roses into a plastic vase handed down by generations of impoverished Williamses. 

Then he puts on a suit and fiddles with the velvet box in his breast pocket for a few hours.

She comes home late and exhausted, with a bruise on her forehead and a splotch of green slime running down her thigh. He finds out later that there was an attack at the store; that she killed a Deadite with a sharpened nail file. 

Sheila tries to sequester herself in the bathroom to get hold of herself, but Ash nudges the door open, finding a dipstick, treating cuts on her hands and face. Sheila tries to push him away but Ash sits her on the counter and carefully treats her face. 

“Thou looks swell,” she declares at some point, but Ash is too concerned to hear her.

She changes under his watchful eye, heading into the safety of the living room, where he forces her to eat the fancy dinner he’s semi-prepared. She glugs down more than her share of wine before he gathers her up into his arms and lets her rest.

Sheila’s too satisfied by the comfort to say much more. She drifts off to sleep in his arms and wakes him hours later with questions.

She tours the kitchen in utter disbelief. Why roses? Why the fancy food? Why a clean house, why a fancy and now-rumpled suit? She can’t fathom the occasion; he hadn’t remembered her birthday for years – and he could barely remember the anniversary of their first date.

He masks a grin as he hit his knee and held up the box. The ring inside wasn’t anything major; a simple diamond cached from his own mother’s stones, placed in a fresh setting, wreathed in teeny-tiny emeralds. Though its size is little, its impact remains fierce; her jaw drops and her eyes fill with tears, and Ash has to keep himself ready, balanced against the fear that she’s going to reject it and make him take the entire thing back. Not that they don’t need the money. He could buy an amazing tv set for the money he spent on this thing. Or at least refurbish the car with it. He gets so caught up in his internal monologue that he doesn’t hear her say yes until she’s thrown herself into his arms and dots his face with kisses and lipstick and tears.


	19. I Don't Dance (Don't Ask Me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's the closest thing Ash has to a real friend. Not that he'd admit it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Tony" is the name emblazoned on the nametag of Ted Raimi's character in the tag scene of the US cut of Army of Darkness, for those who don't know!

“So who are you going to bring to the wedding?”

Tony has an armful of paper towel rolls and his price checker crammed into the fold of his shoulder – he’s so not in the mood for this crap. “You don’t want me at your wedding, Ash.” 

“Guess again, Poindexter,” Ash scoffs. 

“You can barely stand me,” says Tony, turning away and dumping the towels onto the nearest shelf before arranging them. “Why the heck do you want me to come? Do you need somebody to make you look like a human being by comparison?” 

Ash frowns. “Keep up the lip and I’ll toss it in the trash.” Tony rolls his eyes and keeps organizing, but Ash doesn’t leave. “This ain’t my idea. Sheila wants you there. She keeps saying that I need somebody to stand up for me. Guess we do need somebody to be the ring bearer.”

That’s enough to give Tony pause. “You actually want me in the wedding?” he asks. “As in standing up at the end of the aisle with you and being trusted to hang on to your rings? That kinda responsibility?”

Ash frowns. “Yeah. Got a problem with it?”

“No, not at all, it’s just kinda weird. It’s not like you and I have any love lost.”

Ash shuffles against the shelves, rakishly leaning against the stacks, doing his very best Elvis. “Yeah well –you’re the only non-dead friend I’ve got.”

That’s a very good point. Tony shifts his shoulders, quietly, fussily aligning the stacks of Cottonelle so that each label faces outward. “So what do I have to do?”

“Plan my bachelor party,” Ash says. “And help me pick out wedding bands. Show up for the rehearsal dinner, and get a gift – something pretty, she’ll notice if it’s crap and if you buy something from my section I’ll call you on it.”

“Gee, do I get bread and water, too?”

Ash glowers. “You’ll follow what my lady tells you to do and you’ll like it.”

Once upon a time, Anthony never would have followed such a request. Sheila had been assigned to Linda’s old cash register when she’d been hired, and the sight of her with Ash, the sight of her standing almost literally in Linda’s shoes, had been too much for him to stand. They had quarreled quit bitterly more than once, but their every argument had ultimately led him back to the simple truth behind her pride – she’s innocent of wrongdoing, a victim of nothing other than happenstance. 

He and Ash dance around the shared memories they had of Linda, neither willing to confront them. It was better to start anew, to believe in the endless gift of the future. It’s time to stop dancing with the family skeleton and lay Linda’s memory to rest for good and ever.

“I’ll go,” Anthony says. “But don’t expect me to dance with you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ash replies.

At the reception, they dance anyway – with plenty of prodding and encouragement from Sheila.


	20. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not the wedding she pictured but oh, does she want it!

When Sheila had dreamed of this day, years ago, when she was seventeen and betrothed to a man of her mother’s choosing with rich ducal lands and a small manse over which she had been expected to rule, she had expected a small ceremony in the family chapel, accompanied by her family. There would have been feasting and there would have been traveling performers. There would have been dancing the night long, her favorite masques, and a cake made of the mill’s finest grinding. Then the candles would have burned low, and she would have been rushed upstairs to meet her destiny. There may have been a bedding ceremony, with her giggling maidservents helping her into a lacy white nightrail and under the covers to preserve her virginal modesty. That had been before the demons, before her parent’s deaths, the decimation of the kingdom and the loss of her brother to Arthur’s pointless war.

She hadn’t imagined she’d be wearing a pale blue suit dress and high heels. If you’d told her of such inventions in her youth she would have mistaken them for torture devices or witchcraft gone amok. And she didn’t imagine she’d be having a civil ceremony, mandated by a county clerk, in a beautiful but cavernous old courthouse. Bloodtests? What had mattered was parentage, not the possibility of contamination. But here she stood, with a large bundle of marigold held between her shaking palms, waiting for Ash to finish off the paperwork that would kick their marital plans into high gear. 

It had been his choice to do it that way. They didn’t have much in the way of family, though his dad was planning on attending their afternoon ceremony and she’d have several of her work friends. Ash had a couple of frat brothers in attendance who would be there to second for him. She would be married by a strange judge she didn’t know, in the courtroom of a city she was barely a citizen to. Sheila could only smile and put a happy face on it – for what she had given up the reward would be far sweeter.

The chosen bride of the Promised One, the savior from the sky who had saved humanity more times than could be counted. Not bad for a minor cousin of the king who hadn’t been able to snag an advantageous marriage, let alone a position of renound, she thought, her bosom swelling with pride. Her wounds were so minor that they seemed to heal and disappear with little thought. 

Ash didn’t seem at all perturbed by inner turmoil – which, in Sheila’s opinion, was a fresh development. She was so used to him acting, not reacting, but here he seemed so completely calm and so utterly sure of himself. He flickered on and off like an electric light in that manner. Was he reliable enough to make a proper husband? Her heart – and their history – said yes. 

He had come back for her. He always would.

Suddenly he approached, wearing his too-tight suit, forms clutched in his hand. His palms were sweaty as he took her free hand.

“We’re up,” he said.

She gave him a hopeful smile. 

She wouldn’t have a feast made for a queen, but she would have something richer, better. That was what would matter when she was in her dotage, looking back.


	21. Congradulate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it possible to surprise the unsurprisable?

Sheila’s gotten quite good at making schemes up and bringing them to life. To keep Ash entertained one hand to be lively, and the constant stimulation he needed had the bonus effect of enervating Sheila. 

But then again he could shift his attitude, declare he was tired, and sigh about how he needed to be at place x and do things y and z. Sheila tried valiantly to roll with whatever punches his mercurial attitude threw at her, but sometimes it left her frustrated and grasping for straws. He tried to convince her that he would never leave at this point, but Sheila couldn’t entirely stake her trust upon fate after all they’d lived through. He alternated between a need for danger and a need for safety – and he could blame the Deadites for that.

This time, however, she would not fail. She would come through with the words she yearned to speak and let them pour from her throat, and she 

This time they would not be at a Tigers game; they would not be skydiving. They would not be sprawled under a starry night sky and they wouldn’t be slicing the carotid arteries of former humans who had been thoroughly possessed. They would be together, holding one another; they would have one another, without the nervy jump of that invasive word ‘adventure’ between them.

She planned every single inch of the night with all of the firm immovability of a general at command. It was hard to hide the knitting from him but quite easy to make a simple meal and turn down the lights. Sheila splurged on a trip to the salon and on a lovely secondhand dress that she took in and made fresh with repeated washings and layers of lace. 

Ash surprised her by tumbling through the door with a demon attached to the hem of his shirt. It took the two of them to vanquish the demon, stabbing it to pieces with the tip of an old umbrella. 

“I need a shower,” he said, by way of explanation, and left her to wait through a half hour of his primping before taking another bath.

The dress had been ruined, the atmosphere destroyed. Naturally Sheila expected to be able to salvage the dinner – and naturally Ash managed to eat his fill before she was done. 

She considered herself perfectly within her rights when she sat down and burst into tears right there in front of him.

Ash had never been any good at handling crying women. Sheila was no exception. He sort of patted her back and ordered her to stop while she burrowed her face in her hands and cried harder. With a grunt, he awkwardly pulled her onto his lap and let her cling to his side until she felt foolish enough to look up.

“I…” she began, reaching behind them and handing him a gaily wrapped package of navy blue. “I made this for thee.”

He raised an eyebrow, and she was forced to vacate his lap to give him room to open his package – but it was all worth it when she saw the look on his face as he unveiled a tiny sweater. His adam’s apple bobbed – he looked positively terrified. Good, for she felt as scared as he looked.

“Congratulations,” she said against his neck. “We art to have a babe, if thou hadst not kenned that.”

And so began their next adventure.


	22. The Green Onesie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Green or blue?!

She’s as calm as an angel under the weight of her wrenching pain. How often has she been told that it would be this way? In her youth it was a cudgel that kept her from sharing her body before marriage, and the veil she clung to when knights came to court. Only Ash had been strong enough to break through her reserve and convince her to test the uncharted waters of physical passion.

Some might call her physical pain punishment for their ‘fornication’, but she held too much proof in her heart of the good their love did – and had attended enough births to know well that the pain either killed or died away. There would be no half-measures.

She opened her eyes as the contraction abated, somehow finding the bedside alarm clock as her muscles turned weak and pliant. Ten minutes apart. From the books they’d scoured this wasn’t dire but it was alarming. She winced and held her gut. Yes, definitely alarming. “Ashley?”

Ash was still wearing his work uniform and a glob of half-rinsed monster goo between his brows. Her suitcase leaned against his calf as he stuffed the baby’s suitcase. “Green onesie or blue onesie?” he blithered, standing in the middle of the room, his metal hand a clotheshanger. “GREEN OR BLUE ONESIE?!”

“Ash,” she called firmly.

In a moment he was beside her, resting his cool metal fingers against her forehead. “Hold on, baby! Don’t push! Do you need ice chips?”

She reached up and gave him a light slap to the cheek. “I am well, but I shall need a healer.” She cringed, her features collapsing. “SOON. Hie thy carriage to the entrance and I shall endeavor to meet thee.”

Ash actually did as she asked him to – though not without tripping over his own feet on the way out. Sheila sat up very, very slowly; around the mound of her belly she could almost reach the child’s case, but had to gingerly squat to pick it up as well.

She waited by the back door of the condo and he came up, honking and cursing, just minutes after she managed to lock up the place. Ash was solicitous nigh on to desperate as he shepherded her downstairs and to the car. 

Sheila timed her contractions to the sound of the arguing drive-tie DJs – when they introduced the forecast girl, Misty Weather, they were five minutes apart – a fact she concealed from Ash as he maneuvered her into the hospital.

The mechanical chariot that carried her to her appointed room hit every jostling crack in the floor, making Sheila cringe and moan. Ash was abruptly by her side, letting her squeeze his hand, echoing pain with barked out orders. 

For all of his bluster he remained ineffective; the nurses ignored them, helped her to undress and into a gown, hooking her up to monitors, jabbing her for extractions and probing her for readiness. She supposes these modern contraptions are safer than the midwives of her time – or so she hoped.

Her mind seemed to contract in concert with her body, shrinking to fill the space between the beats of her heart. She braced herself and pushed down, braced herself and pushed down, felt the sweat pour from her limbs and worried her aching lower lip as her body rebelled.

There was a rush of pain, the release of delivery, and a squalling infant in the doctor’s arm. She let out a cry similar to the babe’s, arms and hands open and ready.

A rinse and a mending later, she rested in the semi-privacy of her room. Ash brought her the child, and he kissed her temple before poking a cautious middle finger into the folds of the blanket. A fist held on. “Guess I should’ve packed the green onesie.” 

She mutters a request for silence against his jaw, lovingly, hearing the thickness in his voice, the half-hidden emotion.


	23. Home Plate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "mama, catch the ball!"

“Mama! Mama catch the ball!” 

Sheila’s fingers curled up, cupping her hand around the cool, hard baseball. Her daughter’s auburn pigtails swung in the air as she giggled, tapping her whiffle bat against her shoes. “Throw to me!” she demanded.

Ash squatted behind her, gently trying to correct Gwen’s stance. She had a tendency to stick her feet too far out when she batted– and continued to resist every single correction offered up to her by every single adult in her life when she did. “No, daddy!” she said, when Ash grabbed her arms and tried to get her to swing lower.

Ash let go, but he frowned. “You’re gonna thank me for this coaching when you’re older, kid.” 

Gwen was too distracted to listen to Ash’s admonishments. “MAMA THROW.”

Sheila did indeed throw the ball – or to be more precise, lobbed it gently at the child. Gwen swung her bat hard…and clipped Ash’s ear in the process. But she managed to hit it – and the ball rolled along the ground as Gwen ran shrieking around the dinner plates Sheila and Ash had turned into bases.

It was easy enough to pick up the ball, but Sheila allowed the girl to round toward home, which she happily slid into. “I did it!” the little girl shrieked, jumping up and down, spraying dust over Ash, who continued to rub at his ear. 

“Aye, ye did,” Sheila said, scooping her daughter up into a single-armed hug. “It’s thy daddy’s turn next – if he art hail and well enough to run.”

Ash stood up. “I’m fine,” he said, then touseled Gwen’s hair. “Look before you leap, kid.”

“I didn’t leap,” said Gwen.

“Can you throw to papa?” Sheila asked, returning her daughter to the ground and giving the girl the baseball. 

Gwen nodded happily. “I throw good!” she declared, trying to enact a proper pitcher’s pose. 

Sheila shifted away to give them room, and watched her husband take his stance. The bat was absurdly bigger than his hands and he looked a little like a lost giant as he growled and pretended to chew gum. Gwen giggle-screamed, then tossed the ball at him. It missed the bat, and Sheila called it a fair ball.

“Nooo mama! Strike!” insisted Gwen.

“Throw it again,” Sheila said firmly, as Ash gave the ball an underhand toss. Gwen pouted, rubbing the ball against her shorts as she caught it.

Gwen squeezed her eyes tightly shut and concentrated as hard as humanly possible before pitching the ball at Ash. 

He bunted.

Gwen cheered him – at least until he rounded the bases, sliding into home plate. Then he took a victory lap to her shouts of ‘cheater’. Reaching the pitcher’s mound, he doffed his cap and kissed Sheila’s cheek. “That’s some good sugar,” he said.

“Not afore thy daughter,” she said.

“UP, mama!” called Gwen, tugging the hem of her skirt.

Sheila scooped up the girl, trying to cuddle her husband and child both. Their little girl wouldn’t always be two (and a half, as she would always say). It was best to treasure the moment while they had it.


	24. Aloft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheila lets him pretend he's the king sometimes, still.

If Ash is obsessed with anything in the universe beyond the general safety of his family, it’s making sure the children have a completely normal childhood. Sheila wryly tells him that she doesn’t know if such a thing is possible for their brood, having a mother who’s technically four hundred years older than their father, but Ash shakes off her jokes and goes about constructing an ideal youth for the children, the sort of thing Norman Rockwell might envy.

They have a big backyard, a little cozy neighborhood, and lessons; a turtle when the dog doesn’t work out (which is a kind way to put it; the poor thing didn’t last four weeks before it was turned into a Deadite meat puppet), art and ballet lessons and soccer team sign-ups. As average and typical as they could make it when all of the monsters in their custom-designed closets were real.

And – of course – over the summer months Ash dedicates himself to the building and maintenance of the biggest tree house in Dearborn. 

Sheila swears that he went to the trouble of making the thing because of his own yen for a huge yard, not because the children demand it. It takes his mind off his troubles, lets him center himself on doing the one thing he rarely tends to do – behave selflessly. 

In the end he creates a miniature house for them among the strong oak trees. The thickest of branches bolster the smallest of bodies, but he refuses to let nature to chance, instead double strengthening the house and painting them bright, clean yellow. It’s strong enough to hold adults now – toys and even furniture, if the children are so inclined. 

It’s also a lovely place to get away from everything –as she soon discovers when Ash and Michael hole up in its belly to play cards, leaving wee Gwen outside and begging for her mother’s assistance.

Sheila considers a non-aggressive approach for just a minute or two. They might go biking, or they could even go wading down in the lake. But there are sweeter treats to be had in the struggle – as a bundle of water balloons and a sharpened plastic sword soon prove. 

Her husband is enchanting when he’s soaked to the bone and trying to command a small army that’s doomed to fail.

Later, he’ll tell her he let them win, but Sheila will always know better. She’s taught her daughter as well as her son, and both are as capable in a fight, and she knows that Gwen won the day with her impeccable aim. But she loves them both – all of them – and Ash does the same. So no favorites are played, and a family card game commences.

Sheila lets Ash believe himself the king, though the crown is well-shared. There is candy to go around, a wet floor to leave dry, and a game of cards to be won, and a fine Saturday afternoon to survive. No - not to survive through. Enjoy.


	25. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They don't lug around canvases anymore.

They don’t lug canvases about anymore. No, there are no artists who roam kingdom to kingdom painting the world’s important ladies. Instead, the duty of documenting life has fallen to the common man – and the parlance of history is the instant picture.

Ash’s whole life up to the last months of his sisters are chronicled in these portraits; the years before his mother’s death were chronicled down to the meticulous hour but everything afterward was haphazardly shoved between the laminated pages of unused albums. Sheila made a project of organizing everything into pages of correctly ordered ancient memories when she was stuck in bed on maternity leave, but Ash didn’t seem terribly grateful for the effort. He only dared to look over his shoulder so often.

Their own pictures capture odd memories. Her first day at the S-Mart, smiling victoriously in the pet care aisle. Their first co-managed apartment, partially his and partially hers, paid by their combined rents. Their brand-new Oldsmobile, this one bright red with Mag wheels. Their trips overseas – to England, to the excavated castle with its fossilized memories and carefully-preserved artifacts. She saw her own possessions, her mother’s things, now to be remembered forever in the context of a larger history. Their victories – too numerous to count – against the evil. The bloodstains and bruises and broken bones would be worth it – it was a fact they both resisted for so long that their eventual acceptance of the fact became a welcome relief. 

Her belly, swollen with pregnancy. Her children lying upon the expanse of her breast. The whole family standing on the lawn of their little house in Dearborn Heights. Ash on the morning of his first day as an assistant manager at the S-Mart. Happy Christmases, Halloweens, Fourth of Julys and Thanksgivings. The children growing taller and happier. 

The parade of pets; a cat that lived twelve years before becoming Deadite chow, a puppy and a tank of fish that had survived it all. Neighbors who had lived and left. Tony. Annie’s brother. Schoolmates.

Old places that were long gone; malls they had loved and watch sink into the earth. Enormous moons and expansive starscapes. Trees and bright sunlight. Oceans they had swimmed in that neither of them would likely ever see again. Monuments and statues. 

Birthday cakes. Footprints in the sand. Blood staining a chainsaw. Fingers that wave with the independent determination of the wind. Hinrs of lace and secret smiles. Jokes and stories meant only for adults, for private days and nights shared while the children slept.

 

Sheila keeps them all pressed to her heart like a prom bouquet. The good memories will be rayed with gold and kept annotated within her soul and mind forever, thanks to her careful work. The good, new memories will grow to take the place of the bad ones, burying them for always, like a skeleton. And she will always have the record of it, tacked up to her shelf like a halo of herbs in the attic.

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction uses characters from **Army of Darkness/Evil Dead Trilogy** , all of whom are the property of **Renaissance Pictures/Universal Studios**. No money was gained from the writing of this fanfiction and all are used under the strictures of of the Berne Convention.


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